Cover art by Mike Mignola
Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous creation, the Mona Lisa, has been stolen on three separate occasions. The most infamous occurred in August 1911 when the painting mysteriously disappeared from the Louvre while the Paris museum was closed for two days. A second theft then took place in 1994 in Gotham City, while the original Mona Lisa – Italian noblewoman Lisa del Giocondo – was kidnapped in the sixteenth century as da Vinci was putting the finishing touches on her portrait.
Although the 1911 theft occurred in the real world, the other two were regulated to the fictional pages of Batman Annual #18. The Renaissance painter and Caped Crusader are both featured in the issue – entitled “Black Masterpiece” – but do not appear together, instead serving as the main characters of twin storylines that take place during their respective timelines.
The narrative begins in Florence, 1490, with da Vinci showing his recent painting of the angel Gabrielle to his patron, Giuliano Medici. A discussion of the angel’s wings turns into a brief debate between the divine and the scientific until Medici’s wife notes that it is getting late. After leaving, Medici’s young son Tomas says that he wants to be a painter like Leonardo. Giuliano counters that Tomas was “born too high for the life of an artist” before being interrupted by a knife-wielding assassin. Both mother and father are slain – just like Bruce Wayne’s parents – but young Tomas is spared when da Vinci rushes to the scene, causing the assassin to flee.
Flash forwarding to present day Gotham, a criminal mastermind and his three cohorts are toasting the success of their theft of the Mona Lisa from the Gotham Museum. As in Florence, a debate erupts, this one regarding the artistic value of the painting. The thugs only see a “ginky grin” that’s “creepy,” while the woman herself is an “old bag” who “ain’t even a looker.” The mastermind counters that “the Mona Lisa’s beauty is ineffable” and that “the Louvre will gladly pay a fortune for this largely unknown woman with her mysterious and ethereal smile.”
Sure enough, Commissioner Jim Gordon informs Batman that a ransom for fifty million dollars has been faxed to the Louvre. Gordon likewise pities Lofgren, the Gotham Museum employee responsible for the Mona Lisa’s safety, as it won’t be a pleasant encounter when the Louvre’s representative arrives with the ransom money.
Batman tells Gordon to inform Lofgren that the rep arrived in town early and then meets with Lofgren himself in disguise. He mentions that Lofgren once worked for the Louvre, and Lofgren goes on a brief rant about the snobbish nature of the French. Lofgren also gives a detailed account of the security system that was installed to protect the Mona Lisa, arguing that only the “world’s most accomplished thieves” could have pulled it off. By the end of the meeting, however, Batman is convinced of the exact opposite – that the theft was an “inside job” perpetrated by Lofgren.
According to R.A. Scotti in her 2009 book Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa, the French police also believed that the 1911 theft was an inside job and interrogated both past and present of employees of the Louvre. Vincenzo Peruggia previously worked at the Paris museum and even constructed the sealed frame that contained the Mona Lisa. Although he was among those questioned, no one corroborated his alibi.
The police were also convinced that the Mona Lisa was being held for ransom, just like in Gotham City. The painting was too famous, it was believed, to ever be sold, even on the black market. No ransom note ever arrived, however, and without any clues left to follow, the investigation was closed in November 1912. Almost exactly one year later, a letter was received by an art dealer in Florence, Italy, offering to sell him the Mona Lisa. The dealer’s curiosity was piqued and he met with the thief – who turned out to be Peruggia – shortly afterwards. The painting was genuine and after two long years, the Mona Lisa was finally recovered.
Thirteen years after the death of his parents, meanwhile, Tomas Medici not only continues the family tradition of being a patron to Leonardo da Vinci but has become his apprentice as well. While da Vinci paints the Mona Lisa, Tomas laments that his own skills as an artist have not flourished like his master’s. “Perhaps my father was right,” he tells Leonardo’s servant. “Perhaps mine is a different destiny, even a higher one, if not the one of mere birth he advocated! I am more than a highborn aristocrat – I must be more!”
Tomas Medici gets his chance to prove himself shortly afterwards when the real-life “Mona Lisa” is abducted by the House of Pazzi, who were likewise responsible for the assassination of Tomas’ parents. It turns out that Mona Lisa Del Gioconda was more than a model to da Vinci but his lover as well, despite Del Gioconda being married to another man.
Da Vinci does not have the money to pay the ransom but that was the point. The kidnappers knew that only Tomas would have such a large sum and the kidnapping was meant to deplete the Medici fortune. Tomas tells Leonardo he would gladly pay the ransom but would rather extract revenge instead. He then holds up the drawings of the flying machine da Vinci had recently sketched and declares, “God inspires Leonardo, Leonardo inspires me!”
Batman co-creator Bob Kane had seen those very same sketches when he was a child and the images of the bat-like wings stuck with him into adulthood. In his notes, da Vinci writes that he was inspired by bats – along with kites and birds – and his design featured a 33-foot wingspan with pointed ends, just like a bat. When Kane shared his initial sketches of the “Bat-Man” to fellow co-creator Bill Finger, it featured wings similar to da Vinci’s. Finger, however, felt the design was too cumbersome, so the wings were replaced with a cape instead.
In Florence, Tomas Medici is now dressed in his own Batman attire eerily similar to that of Bruce Wayne, thanks to the artistic imagination of Leonardo da Vinci. Tomas tracks down a member of the House of Pazzi and frightens him into revealing the location of Mona Lisa, a tall tower too high for him to reach with anything but wings. Although da Vinci has designed such a pair, he believes that “man is too large and heavy, his bones too dense. His musculature is insufficient to power wings large enough to bear his weight.”
“Then I will not beat my wings, Leonardo,” Tomas replies. “I will simply soar.”
As Leonardo bombards the tower where the Mona Lisa is being held hostage with a catapult, Tomas’s Batman does indeed soar from the roof of another building and glides to the top of the tower. Back in present day Gotham, meanwhile, Batman has tracked Lofgren to a penthouse apartment in an isolated high-rise likewise too tall for the Caped Crusader to reach without wings. He thus devises a plan similar to that of Tomas and glides through the air to Lofgren’s penthouse.
With the aid of some homemade bombs courtesy of da Vinci, Tomas makes his way through the tower, arriving just in time to save the real-life Mona Lisa’s face from being slashed by her vengeful husband. Believing that da Vinci’s masterpiece was painted on top of an earlier work, Lofgren is also about to deface the Mona Lisa but is attacked by his henchmen, who are unwilling to lose a fifty million dollar payout from the Louvre. As they square off, Batman arrives on the scene and – like his Florence counterpart – subdues the bad guys and rescues the Mona Lisa.
Although the Mona Lisa was famous when it was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, R.A. Scotti notes in Vanished Smile that it was the theft that made it infamous. The crime was not only front page news in France but around the world as well, continuing to make headlines for months afterwards. It’s recovery two years later inevitably led to another round of fame, cementing its status as the most visited painting at the Louvre and increasing its significance within the realm of popular culture.
In Batman Annual #18, Leonardo da Vinci not only finishes his painting of Mona Lisa but adds an image of the Batman in the background. Tomas, however, believes the image is too “dark” and paints over it. Back in Gotham, Commissioner Gordon tells Batman that there may indeed be another image underneath the Mona Lisa. Although it might be tempting, however, he doubts that the Louvre would ever take the necessary steps to uncover it.
“It might unmask an older masterpiece,” he muses as Gotham’s Batman makes his exit. “But there’s nothing like the real thing.”
Anthony Letizia